Frustration with situation of Lumbee Native Americans spurs activism

Locklear describes his awakening as an activist, spurred by his frustration with the application of the Lumbee label to a diverse group of Native Americans, his distress at their poverty, and his dissatisfaction with the federal government's lack of investment in his community.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Carnell Locklear, February 24, 2004. Interview U-0007. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

So, Mr.
Locklear, start where you think is appropriate to tell us your first
experiences as an activist here in Robeson County.

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

In 1968, I began to wonder, what kind of people are we. We look
different, each one of us. There's not many of us looks alike. We're a
sprinkle. Some got, you know, red hair, and some got blonde hair, and I
said, man, what kind of people, where'd we come from? I never really
knew, always heard we were Lumbees. Then I got to doing some research,
and find out myself there was a tremendous amount of different tribes
among us. The Eno, the Cherokee, the Tuscarora, and different tribes.
And then I said, man, how can we be Lumbee people and have all this
different blood of Indians among us. And then I went to doing some
research with the encyclopedia, and I found out that the people in the
eastern part of North Carolina were Tuscarora people. Migrated, they
were here, and then some left and some went to New York and some stayed
here. Now, all of the Indian people at that time didn't leave here. Some
migrated up there, and some stayed here and hid in the swamps. Then I
got really interested, and I wanted to find out about the Lumbee bill. I
went to Washington, and I sat down and talked to
Alton Lennon, and he gave me a copy of the Lumbee bill.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

Talked to who?

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Alton Lennon. He was a congressman at that time. He was from Wilmington.
And he says, he give me a copy of Lumbee bill, and I read it. In the
Lumbee Bill at that time, it said, these people hereafter will be
recognized as Lumbee Indians. In other words, they would have the name
as Lumbee Indians, but they will have no rights as Indian people. And
that kind of threw me off. I said, man, what kind of-in other
words, we're Indian in one sense, and non-Indians in the other one. And
Alton Lennon told me, he come down here and him and I met at the Old
Foundry. And he told me, "Now, Mr. Carnell, what it is now,
these people are very difficult to work with. They will fight each other
and we've tried to work with them, and I've not been able to do anything
with them." I said, "Well, I want to help my
people." I said, a lot of our people at that time, they needed
food stamps, they needed kerosene, they needed clothing. A lot of them
couldn't read and write. And they didn't understand the system. They'd
get lost in the system. So I said, I want to start an organization, a
non-profit organization, and I want to see if I could help. So I give up
my job, selling insurance, and I lost my home, I lost my trailer, I lost
my car, I lost everything. And I moved in a old house over near Midway,
and then I started organizing. We'd meet once a week. And the people
would help me by bringing me food to eat. They would
pay my light bill at that time, and they bought me some furniture. They
gave me a stove, and they give me clothing. There's a man in
Fayetteville, I'll never forget him, his name is Mr. Champ Goins, give
me an old 1964 beat up Plymouth. And somebody had hit it in the rear and
knocked the rear end slam up there. So I began to organize, and we began
to go down to the food stamp place. A lot of people would go in there,
and they'd apply for food stamps, and it would be three months before
they'd hear from the application. And I said, "Boy, this is
wrong." I said, "This is just wrong." So we,
at that time we began to organize, we began to march against the system
down there.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

Social Services?

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Department of Social Services. That was the first thing we jumped on.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

Now, tell me who was it that was gathering with you to do these?

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

The low income class people from the county here. Indian people
primarily.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

Were they becoming aware of being Tuscarora as well?

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Yeah. We studied the history books at night during the process, and
Barry Nakell from Chapel Hill, he agreed to draw up a charter. I knew
him by, he come down here and met with me and at that time we were
really getting in the newspaper a great deal. The Robesonian was very,
very nice to us, because we had a guy from Texas, I've forgot his name,
but anyway he began to write articles almost every week. And the more
he'd write, the more I would get involved. And Mr.
Chavis, what was his name? Miss Dorothy's daddy, Dorothy Lowry's daddy,
what was his name? Uncle Zimmie's boy.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

Ed? I mean not Ed-

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Ed's father.

MALINDA MAYNOR:

James, Jim.

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Mr. Jim Chavis. Mr. Jim Chavis told me to come to his house. I went to
his house, and he says, "Mr. Carnell," he says,
"I've been watching you for a long time, ever since you were a
little boy." And he says, "I want you to try to do
something. I'm getting old and feeble." But he said there was
22 individuals that recognized in 1934 that Indians of one half or more
degree of Indian blood. And he says, "I want you to take this
stuff and I want you to go Washington, see what you can do with
it." Well, at that time, the American Friends Service
Committee, who is a religious organization who helped minorities or
disadvantaged people to help themselves. So they agreed to help me a
little bit. So they gave me a grant of 1500 dollars. And I took that
money and used it to buy my clothes and stuff and buy my gas. And I went
to Washington and met with the American Indian Rights Fund [Native
American Rights Fund] out of Boulder, Colorado. So they agreed to give
me a lawyer, Thomas N. Tureen. You ever hear of him?

MALINDA MAYNOR:

I have, he's very well known.

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:

Thomas N. Tureen. So I went to Washington and showed some people in the
BIA that document, where the 22 was recognized. So this guy said,
"Man, I don't know what you're talking about." I said,
"Boy, you'll get
[unclear]
to be here." So he agreed to help me find the people's
names and the addresses of these people, of the 22.
What the 22 was, they come down here and took blood samples of the
people, and their eyes, their nose, their hair, their fingernails, their
skin, their living traditions, the culture. And they said, well, these
people are one-half or more degree of Indian blood under the
Howard-Wheeler Act. The Indian Organization [Act] of 1934, which gives
them the right to organize and have a reservation, and be hired by the
BIA, Indian Health Services. But what happened, at that time, during the
1934 up to up until the '50s, the BIA was trying to terminate Indians.
And these people names got shuffled around through the red tape and had
been forgot about. So Thomas N. Tureen agreed with the Rights Fund to
come and help us. And at that time, we began to organize and began to
march on Department of Social Services, and we sometimes would have 3
and 400 people at the meetings. And at that time, the double voting
issue come along. That was where the people in the towns could vote for
the people in the country, but the people in the country couldn't vote
for the people in the towns.